p. 93 | Locust Plague by M. E. Cornell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 22, 1865

Locust Plague.

By M. E. Cornell

ONE of the destructive elements sent in the last days, according to Joel, is the Locusts. They are personified as a "nation," "strong and without number." The palmer-worm, locusts, canker-worm, and caterpillar, are called the Lord's "great army." The "Locust division," may be considered one of the most powerful branches of this army service. It seems that those who have witnessed the army of locusts in the east, have recognized it as a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy.

The following extract from a letter, dated at Jaffa (Palestine), June 20, 1865, I clip from the Boston Journal of Aug. 3:

"In the month of April last we observed twice, large dark clouds, resembling smoke, moving to and fro as if swayed by the wind. One morning these clouds came down and proved to be locusts, so great in number that the whole land was covered with them. The grain at that time was full in ear and nearly ripe, but the locust did not touch it or any other vegetation. Soon after, however, it was observed that they buried themselves in the soil and there deposited their innumerable eggs. The Arabs and peasants saw the approaching mischief, and went through the land in thousands digging for these eggs; they succeeded to a certain degree, and destroyed incredible numbers with water and fire, but all their efforts had very little effect.

"About the middle of May small black creatures, at a distance resembling large ants, were observed accumulating in large heaps throughout the country, and a few days after they had been thus seen they began to leap, and manifested the coming calamity and invasion of the fearful army, as described so emphatically in Joel ii. The people now began to sweep them together and bury or burn them in ditches dug for the purpose. But all to little or no effect, and as they grew a little larger the extent of their multitude began to be seen, and the coming catastrophe could not be mistaken. The roads were covered with them, all marching in regular lines, like armies of soldiers, with their leaders in front, and all the opposition of man to arrest their progress was in vain.

"They first consumed the plantations around Ramlah, Lydda, and all the smaller villages near them, and then entering the towns and villages consumed the victuals &c., in the market and streets, by degrees forcing themselves into the houses and covering the walls outside as well as inside. It seems that everything which is moistened by their saliva is poisoned, for the cattle that feed on the remnants which are left all die. I myself saw fifty oxen dead in the village of Delta, Daggon and Zaffarish, that had fed on the remnants of durrah (Indian corn) left by the locusts, and the night before last, twenty more died from the same cause.

"About two weeks ago they were seen to a fearful extent all round Jaffa, but still without wings. The town for several days appeared forsaken, all shops were shut, all business suspended. Almost all the inhabitants had gone out to destroy and drive away the invading army; they made tremendous ditches, and buried and burned countless myriads, but as before, all in vain, for the more they destroyed the more seemed to arise from hiding places, and as they grew in size so they seemed to grow in multitude, and toward the east from here they covered the ground for miles and miles to a height of several inches. As their wings are still too small to enable them to fly and to visit the several hundred gardens within the cultivated part of the district of Jaffa, they have hitherto confined their destructions to the outer gardens, of which about fifty have been completely laid waste, every green leaf, vegetable, tree, and even the bark of young trees devoured, and these beautiful gardens look like a birch tree forest in winter.

"Our garden was one of the first attacked. For several days we saw the destructive host advancing; all our farm servants, as well as several hired laborers, were employed to keep them off, to drive them away, or bury them, but we found them as Joel describes them, chap. ii, ver. 7, 'They shall not break their ranks.' Who can doubt the word of God when we have these evidences before our eyes? True, our men broke their ranks for a moment, but no sooner had they passed the men than they closed again, and marched forward through hedges and ditches, as if united by some mysterious power, causing them to open before man, and to close again as soon as they had passed him. On the 14th instant they forced their way into the garden, defying all human efforts to prevent them, and in less than a day the whole garden, to the extent of eight acres, was covered with them, and the trees, to the number of three thousand, as well as every other green leaf, with the exception of the palm trees, and the prickly-pear hedges, were stripped.

"Whether eating or drinking, reading or writing, or lying awake in bed (for it is impossible to sleep), one hears their noise from without, like the noise of armed hosts, or of the running of many waters, and within they keep dropping on and about you. At meals I am kept busy driving them away; while I drive half a dozen away from the bread, as many will jump into the sugar basin, or even into my cup of tea, &c., and when undressing they leap out of our very clothes, without our having known that they were there.

"News has just reached us from Nablous; the olive trees in those mountains have all been stripped, and near the river Oudge the soil is so thickly covered with these creatures, that many of the animals led there to drink refuse to pass on.

"Another letter of a later date says that

"They are in no wise decreasing, rather the opposite. Every native inhabitant has been ordered by government to bring fifteen pounds weight of locusts daily, and those who do not are fined £1 sterling each time.

LOCUSTS IN SYRIA.

"The following letter gives an account of the plague of locusts in Syria :

"Maalaka, May 18. I think you will be interested to hear about the swarms of locusts which have visited the whole of Palestine and the Lebanon, and which, I fear, will leave little food for man or beast. Early in last month the locusts first appeared, and in such myriads, that on looking through the telescope, they seemed like a dense fall of snow, in huge yellow flakes, as far as the eye could reach, and continued for weeks to cover the whole land, with the exception of a small portion. We are very thankful that in our two little villages, and for a few miles round, no locusts alighted. Every evening the town crier used to go round and cry out: 'Men, women and children of Maalaka, you are to leave your work and go to drive away the locusts, and he who disobeys shall eat one hundred rods, sit twenty-four hours in prison and pay a fine.' By shouting and drumming, the people frightened away some of the swarms to hinder them from depositing

eggs. Then, a fortnight later, a proclamation was issued that every individual must bring a measure of locusts' eggs to the Seraligo to be burnt, and those who could not gather must buy their share. So locusts' eggs were sold at a high price, and finally burnt. The last thing ordered was the formation of little canals, into which the young larvae (now hatched and eating voraciously) might be chased and destroyed en masse. With all their efforts and orders from the Sultan, very few, comparatively, can be killed, and I fear the land will suffer grievously. The locusts have not come here for twenty years back, and their visit now is supposed to be owing to the very mild winter we had."

We read the first nine verses of the second chapter of Joel, with the above account, and we are nearly ready to say, "This is that spoken by the prophet Joel."

The caterpillar and army worm in this country are depositing their untold millions of eggs. More than twenty thousand have been found upon one small apple-tree. There is a prospect that another year's increase of destructive insects, will cause men to mourn and lament, for the cutting off of fruits and grains, in some places.

Who can fail to see that troubles are nigh at hand? It is well to discern the signs and be ready.

M. E. CORNELL.